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Life and Struggles of Subaltern in Ghosh's Novel the Hungry Tide

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Life and Struggles of Subaltern in Ghosh's Novel the Hungry Tide SHANLAX s han lax International Journal of English # S I N C E 1 9 9 0 Life and Struggles of Subaltern in Ghosh’s Novel The Hungry Tide Rinupriya Kannan I MA. English, Sri Sarada College for Women (Autonomous), Salem OPEN ACCESS Introduction Subaltern denotes someone who has been marginalized or Volume : 6 oppressed. The term subaltern derived its origin from Marxism, describes a person who is of lower rank in military or class or caste. Special Issue : 1 They do not have political or economic power, and they live under dictatorship. The term subaltern in literature is related with the terms Month : September like masses, Dalit, deprived, oppressed, marginalized and neglected sections of society. It concerns about sociological, political, historical Year: 2018 aspects of society. This paper focuses on the life subaltern people through the novel ISSN: 2320-2645 The Hungry Tide, written by Amitav Ghosh which portrays the life of subaltern in between the sea and the plains of Bengal, tide and Impact Factor: 4.110 tigers. The term subaltern is derived from the Latin word Subalternus, ‘sub’ means next below and ‘alternus’ means every other. It has a Citation: remarkable development in Indian history during the partition of Kannan, Rinupriya. the country. Many have lost their homes and has become neglected “Life and Struggles of sections of society. The meaning of the word subaltern has some Subaltern in Ghosh’s changes, the adjective form denotes the oppressed people and noun Novel The Hungry form denotes a military rank next to captain. It is used to describe Tide.” Shanlax the peasants of the Indian freedom struggle and later it is included in International Journal of theory of colonization. This novel shows the life of the suppressed English, vol. 6, no. S1, people. 2018, pp. 73–76. The Hungry Tide is a novel written by Amitav Ghosh an Indian author. His important works are The Glass Palace, Sea of Poppies, DOI: River of Smoke. He has won several awards like Sahitya Akademi Award, Ananda pushcar, and government has given him the civilian https://doi.org/10.5281/ award Padma Shri. He has expressed his concern for the downtrodden zenodo.1421147 people of Indian society in many of his novels. He has shown the problems of subaltern people like alienation, migration, and several other external crisis. In this novel he has portrayed the difficult situation of subaltern people. He has used the real incidents of life as theme in many of his novels. In The Hungry Tide he shows the effect of the partition of the country. An important critic of subaltern theory is Gayathri Chakravorty Spivak argues that subaltern people do not have voice, but Ghosh argues that the subaltern people will have voice if they have opportunity. In this novel life of subaltern is shown through characters like Fokir, Kusum. They are the dalit refugees of http://www.shanlaxjournals.in 73 International Conference on Shifting Paradigms in Subaltern Literature Bangladesh who settled in Sundarbans, Westbengal. It portrays the event in Morichjhapi in 1979. The refugees from Bangladesh has been considered as offenders and government has ordered their execution. Morichjhapi incident, a brutal violence against subaltern is displayed in this novel. When the novel begins we find the meeting of Kanai-Dutt a translator and Piyali Raj a cetologist from USA. Kanai is going to meet his aunt Nilima who is running Badabon trust for the downtrodden people in one of the islands of Sundarbans. Piyali is going there for her study of dolphins. Kanai is going to get a journal, written by his uncle Nirmal Bose for him. He has been to canning when he was young, now he is going back there again after several years. Piya is a Indian by birth but she has settled in USA she doesn’t know Bengali. After reaching canning Piya hires a guide and guard, she hopes that they could direct her to the dolphins. In her attempt she falls in the river and Fokir a fisherman rescues her. He directs her to the place where dolphins are found. Fokir doesn’t know English but they manage to do the best they can to communicate. The place Lusibari where Badabon trust is located is a pidgin version of Lucy’s House, a British officer has named it so in memory of his wife. He has welcomed the impoverished people to come and populate the place, and he has tried to form a society free from caste system and tribal nationalism. The poor people has heeded his call. Nirmal and Nilima arrive in Lusibari after their marriage and they organize a school for unprivileged of Lusibari. Kanai comes to know about his childhood friend Kusum, she has been abandoned by her mother, who is one of the subaltern in that island. She has been married to Ragen but he died in a train accident and Fokir is their son. Kanai gets the journal written by his uncle from his aunt, he goes through the note. Ghosh often use some form of note or letter to narrate the past events, here he uses the letter written by Nirmal to narrate the history of downtrodden people. This note narrates the Morichjhapi incident. Kusum a helpless woman is one of the affected ones in that incident. Kanai knows her as a teenage girl. By reading Nirmal’s notebook Kanai comes to know that Kusum is dead in that incident. Morichjhapi incident refers to historical event that happened in West Bengal where the Bangladeshi refugees are forcibly evicted from the island. After the partition in 1947 Bangladeshi Hindu people settled in Sundarbans. The left parties who are the opposite party request the government to accept the and to provide them shelter. During this time forty thousand refugees settled in Morichjhapi ,Sundarbans a part of the protected island under Reserve Forest Act. So government asked the refugees to leave the island. But they refused, so West Bengal government imposed economic blockade on them. They stopped the supply of food and water to them. Settlers attacked the police camp and police fired on them. One of the settlers crossed the river and informed the press about the economic blockade becomes a big issue and Calcutta High Court has ordered the government to withdraw the economic blockade. Then government started the forcible eviction and many people died in the incident, they prevented the press from entering in to the island. Ghosh tries to portray this incident in this novel through the character of Kusum, she is depicted as a woman died in that incident. Kusum is a girl from Satleja her father has been killed by the tiger and her mother abandoned her. Because her mother doesn’t get any help from the government and she has to earn money by some means. A land owner has sold her to a brothel house in the name of a job. He tries the same with Kusum at that time Horen saves her and takes her to the women’s trust of Nilima. Then Kusum marries Ragen, they have a son named Fokir. They find Kusum’s mother in a pathetic situation in the brothel house, they rescues her from there. But she dies within three months. Rajen dies in a train accident leaving Kusum and Fokir alone. Then she comes to know that a group of people are moving towards the east along the Railway track, she joins them and settles in Morichjhapi. When government tries to evict them she actively participates in the movement. 74 Pachamuthu College of Arts and Science for Women, Dharmapuri SHANLAX s han lax International Journal of English # S I N C E 1 9 9 0 During the economic blockade she suffers a lot, the worst thing is hunger and thirst. At the end of the struggle she sends Fokir with Horen ,at the last day many including women are raped and killed and has been thrown in to the water. Kusum is one among them. Ghosh narrates all this events in the form a note written by Nirmal. When he comes to know about the refugees he feels pity on them and often visits the island. He tries to help them, he stayed with them. After that tragedy he wants to reveal it to the world, so he writes the incidents in his notebook and gives it to Horen and asks him to give that to Kanai and no one else. Because of the effect of the incident he dies. As the media and press are banned from the island, the incident is not known to the world. The number of deaths according to official record is two but the news presented by the newspapers at that time says that it is up to one thousand. The migrants of Morichjhapi island are outside the hegemony that is without any political leadership. They are helpless and voiceless and they fall under subaltern category. Fokir is one of the subaltern who helps the visitors. He accompanies Piya in her search for dolphins. They are stranded in a storm, there Fokir loses his life in his attempt to save Piya. Kanai and Piya decides to settle in the island and to help the downtrodden people of Lusibari. Morichjhapi incident is a pubic history, to present that Ghosh has used the private history of Kusum, through this he tries to reveal that incident to the world. Here Ghosh has used Nirmal’s notebook as a device to narrate the private history of Kusum. Ghosh tries to bring out the silenced voice of the migrants of Morichjhapi, and he gives voice to the subaltern people like Kusum.
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